Dracula and Frankenstein: Forgotten Monsters in the Age of 'Twilight'?

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Dracula and the Frankenstein monster are supposed to be immortal, but cultural amnesia is threatening their legacy. Or so vampire novelist RH Greene believes.

"2011 marks the 80th anniversary of both the Bela Lugosi screen version of DRACULA and the Boris Karloff FRANKENSTEIN," says Greene, who is the author of INCARNADINE: THE TRUE MEMOIRS OF COUNT DRACULA, a medieval origin myth for literature's most infamous vampire. "These two 1931 films are arguably the most revered and influential horror titles of all time. But you'd have to be a hardcore fanboy to know that either movie just hit a milestone.

"Neither film is on Blu-ray, there's been no official push to honor them this year. Aside from write-ups on some of the fan sites and a few fan-organized screenings, the silence is deafening. Which is appalling. Because they're still icons. Thousands of kids will dress up as the suave Lugosi Dracula or the bolt-necked Karloff Monster this Halloween, like they always do. But most of them will have no idea what films they're honoring."

Greene says he knows he can't influence the Hollywood powers that be. So he's staging his own anniversary event. Through Halloween, the eBook version of his own well-received DRACULA novel will be made available through the Amazon website for one dollar and 80 cents -- a 95 percent discount off the hardcover list price.

"Actually, we wanted to mark the INCARNADINE eBook down to 80 cents," Greene says. "But Amazon's system isn't configured to let you do that. So $1.80 it had to be. It's basically a giveaway -- a small, hopefully proactive protest against our collective lack of memory. Because I'm worried, frankly. DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN were released in a combined video edition for the 60th anniversary, but there was pretty much nothing for the 80th. So there's slippage there. An erosion. And I think these two great films need and deserve all the attention thy can receive."